Record set for longest shot — 109 feet, 9 inches

YourThoughts

jafabian

Not impressed. He banked it in. Get back to me when he can go nothing but net.

;)

tedsfrozenhead

Ball never hit the backboard

RadioGuy

Great shot. And then the game started…

Deserved kudos to “Thunder” Law for hitting that shot, but this is an encapsulation of what the Harlem Globetrotters have become. Ever since Mannie Jackson (who brought the Trotters back from near-bankruptcy after buying them in the Nineties) sold them to some corporation called Shamrock Entertainment or whatever in California, the team has been terrific at garnering publicity for one thing or another but the quality of their show has badly declined.

I’ve loved the Harlem Globetrotters since I was a kid in the late Sixties and have collected their programs for every year since 1949, but the last two shows I’ve gone to have been disappointing because they just aren’t that entertaining. The players themselves have some skills, as they always have, but their shows feature very little basketball being played while on-court promotions are carried out while the clock is running. All the old routines are pretty much gone and the jokes are lame. These are not the Trotters of Goose Tatum, Marques Haynes, Meadowlark & Curly or even Sweet Lou Dunbar.

I hope and pray that Shamrock sells the team to a Mannie Jackson who brings the focus back to basketball but until then, the Harlem Globetrotters will be all about getting in the news and being a live-action commercial while coasting on what they used to be. Maybe I’M the anachronistic one, but I find this sad.

WeeklyRoundup Email

Followus on Twitter

Likeus on Facebook

Circleus on Google+

SportspressNW.com has partnered with Crosscut.com. Watch exclusive videos of Art Thiel and get the latest political and civic news from the Northwest at Crosscut.com.

ArtThiel on KPLU

Kirsten Kendrick's Q. & A. with Thiel can be heard every Friday during Morning Edition at 5:35am and 7:35am and again that same day on All Things Considered at 4:45pm. It also airs Saturday at 6:35am and 9:35am.